About this Research Topic

Background

The significance and importance of small ruminants and their breeding for humankind are diverse and cannot be overestimated. Since domestication, sheep and goats have been a source of valuable food products (milk, meat) and warm wool/leather clothes and shoes that protect from cold weather. They also served as sacred animals in early religious rituals and celebrations and accompanied nomads and traders in their long migrations and travels. Sheep wool contributed to building empires and advancing industrial revolutions. In the past and at present, small ruminant products provide many people living in extreme poverty with essential nutrients, supplying them with everyday necessities and ensuring a traditional lifestyle (e.g., pastoralism) for many ethnic groups.

Implementation of high-throughput arrays and next generation sequencing approaches has unlocked an era of genomic investigation in small ruminants, addressing various research aims, from deepening knowledge on the origin and genetic connections of worldwide sheep and goat breeds to understanding the mechanisms underlying the formation of economically important traits and tremendous natural resilience of small ruminants.

This Research Topic aims to embrace various research aspects of using molecular genetics and genomic technologies as applied in small ruminant breeding. We invite small ruminant investigators and specialists to share their unique experience and views and discuss research solutions, limitations, and conclusions relevant to sheep and goat breeding. We hope that the proposed collection of articles will address advances in genetic and genomic investigations in small ruminants in order to fill in blank spaces for a better understanding of the complex organization of sheep and goat genomes and to ensure the future progress and sustainable management of these important domestic animals and their genetic resources.

In this Research Topic, we welcome Original Research articles, Brief Research Reports, and Reviews covering (but not limited to) the following topics:
• Genomic assessment of local sheep and goats breeds;
• Domestication history as inferred from genomic studies;
• Aspects and challenges of application of genomic technologies (SNPs and other markers, gene expression, whole genome and transcriptome sequencing, GWAS, candidate genes, etc.) in conservation and breeding of domestic and wild small ruminants;
• Unlocking the sources and traces of probable introgression from wild relatives into domestic sheep and goat resources inhabiting hybrid zones;
• Genome-wide association studies for economically important traits;
• Genomic signatures of selection in domestic and wild small ruminant species;
• Adaptation of sheep and goats to diverse environments and feed sources;
• Genetics of disease resistance in small ruminant species;
• Significance of genomic technologies in sheep and goat breeding to face unpredictable climate changes;
• Prospects for marker assisted selection in small ruminant breeding and production.

Keywords: Small ruminant breeding, sheep, goat, genetic polymorphic markers, genomics, SNP genotyping, whole genome and transcriptome sequencing, candidate genes, diversity, domestication history, genomic footprints of selection, adaptation, disease resistance, marker assisted selection

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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